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More than 16 months ago, Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) formally announced its intention to start flying to Hawaii.
The carrier finally got the necessary regulatory approvals last week, several months later than management had initially hoped. As a result, Southwest Airlines began ticket sales on Monday. As expected, it's looking to make a huge splash with tantalizingly low introductory fares.
In fact, Southwest priced some flights from California to Hawaii as low as $49 one way for a limited time. Yet due to the high pent-up demand for Southwest Airlines flights to Hawaii, these low fares don't pose a big threat to competitors like Hawaiian Holdings (NASDAQ: HA) and Alaska Air (NYSE: ALK).
Phase one of Southwest's Hawaii rollout
Southwest Airlines management has indicated during recent earnings calls that the carrier would begin flying to Hawaii very soon after launching ticket sales. This became even more essential after the approval process was delayed by the five-week government shutdown that ended in late January. The low-fare airline has infrastructure in place for Hawaii flights that has been going to waste over the past couple of months.
Indeed, Southwest will operate its first commercial flight to Hawaii on March 17 -- less than two weeks from now -- with a flight departing Oakland at 8:20 a.m. local time and arriving in Honolulu at 11:10 a.m. It will begin a second daily Oakland-Honolulu flight about a week later.
Southwest Airlines will begin flying to Hawaii on March 17. Image source: Southwest Airlines.
Twice-daily Oakland-Kahului (Maui) service will begin in early April, followed by once-daily flights from San Jose to Honolulu and Kahului in early May and late May, respectively.
Southwest Airlines also announced that it will launch interisland flights on April 28, with four daily round-trips between Honolulu and Kahului. It will add four daily round-trips between Honolulu and Kona (on Hawaii's Big Island) on May 12. That will enable one-stop service from Oakland and San Jose to Kona.
About those $49 flights
With Oakland-Honolulu service starting later this month -- and several other routes starting this spring -- Southwest Airlines knew it needed to offer deep discounts to fill those flights. Its $49 one-way promotion worked. Within a few hours, there were barely any $49 fares left, and many flights for the first two months of service registered as completely sold out.
For busier travel days, Southwest offered introductory fares of $79 or $99 one way. Most of those sold out quickly, too. By the late-morning hours on the West Coast, there were still $79 or $99 one-way fares to be had on a handful of flights, but for most days this spring and summer, a round-trip flight on Southwest from Oakland or San Jose to Hawaii now costs upward of $300 -- and, in many cases, more than $400.